


A Damn Perfect Spot

by May



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 05:45:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13160514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May/pseuds/May
Summary: Edward can appreciate a good crime scene.





	A Damn Perfect Spot

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a 12 Days of Christmas prompt: one little flower!

There was a lot that Edward knew about blood spillage. What the weapon must have been, the distance of the assailant, the angle of the attack and the force. There’s a lot to know.

Somehow, none of it really meant anything when you were the one dealing the damage. Beating somebody over the head with a crowbar didn’t lead one to inspect the spray of blood, afterwards. It was information that he had slipped away into a mental file, though it was still there.

Oswald had probably never considered the mechanics of blood spray. But he beat in Tarquin Stemmel’s skull with his own golf trophy and made a perfect halo out of cranial fluid on the floor, while red dripped down the gold of the figure. Edward could have almost taken a picture. Almost.

Later, he wished he had. Later, he thought about Isabella’s body and the crank of metal that had embedded itself in her neck. It mapped to where his fingers had been, but cut right through instead of around. Oswald had gone where he hadn’t, then made an obstruction where the metal protruded and twisted round.

Edward reached for his pillbox.

Oswald blinked into existence, perched neatly on the couch, his skin harbour water-slick and his lips dull. His eyes were gleaming, though, large and green as the spring.

“I’m glad you notice these things,” announced the apparition. “I can so go unnoticed.”

Oswald’s lips twisted into a sneer, and he stood up, using the arm of the chair to push himself upright. He shuffled over to Edward, leaving trails of his deep grave on the wooden floor.

“You know, of course, that it’s a stretch,” he said. When they were standing that close to each other, and Oswald looked up at him, Edward only saw him eyes first, and so he saw his hallucination that way, too. His eyes were the color of leaves on young plants, or the scales of a grass snake.

“It’s chance,” mused Edward. He hated unquantified outcomes, but he liked the beauty of accidental patterns.

Oswald nodded, and turned his eyes downwards for a moment. “Do you know what else happened by chance, Ed?”

He moved his hands to the buttons of his jacket, his fingers pale and nimble. Edward held his breath as the wood on the walls began to turn scarlet. But Oswald only left his jacket hanging open, so that Edward could see the wound in his gut. Where the bullet pitted his skin, it was black like the heart of a poppy. Red bloomed on his white dress shirt like petals, large and rounded, with soft, feathered points in between.

“It’s perfect, don’t you think?” said Oswald.

“Beautiful,” sighed Edward.

Even later so, he thought about the real bloom on Oswald’s shirt, how it must have looked before it clouded up into the water and then faded away. All he could hope for, now, was that it was perfect.


End file.
